DISCRIMINATION is well and fine in Israel. While the constant daily images show the brutal treatment by the Israeli security forces and the Israeli occupiers (ridiculously referred to as settlers) against innocent and helpless Palestinians; the picture is much starker and darker than this. There is brutal discrimination amongst Israeli Jews themselves. Failure is a word that properly describes and is a manifestation of Israel's continuous difficulty in handling its relations with Conservative and Reform Judaism, branches of the faith to which many non-Israeli Jews belong. Non-Orthodox Jews play a major role in the Jewish world, especially in the United States, the largest and most important Jewish community outside Israel. In America, 53 percent of Jews are Reform and Conservative compared with just 10 percent who are Orthodox, according to the Pew Research Center. Israel claims to be a Jewish state for all Jews. Israel also relies on the support of all Jews. So even if Israelis decide to keep Orthodox Judaism as the officially dominant form of Judaism and many Israelis do not want such domination to continue, it would make sense for Israel, both conceptually and practically, to make room for Reform and Conservative Jews rather than annoy and humiliate them. There is another ridiculous form of discrimination taking place as well in Israel. Economists see a potential drag on a country's growth when a portion of the population doesn't work. The ultra-Orthodox, however, see fulfillment of a higher purpose if they can arrange for their men to forgo jobs in favor of full-time religious study. In Israel, that's translating into a growing number of women working outside the home so their husbands don't have to. The trend is apparent at technology companies such as Matrix IT Ltd. About 800 ultra-Orthodox women work for a unit of the company in Modiin Illit, a settlement near Tel Aviv. Stanley Fischer, Israel's central bank governor, calls this a risk to the country's growth. “A continued increase in the share of the population which does not participate in the workforce cannot continue forever,” he says. The ultra-Orthodox, which make up about 8 to 10 percent of the population today, will represent 17 percent of working-age Israelis in 20 years because of high birth rates. There are the prevalent cases of discrimination between Jews of European origin known as Ashkenazi and Jews from Middle Eastern origin known as Sephardim. This was highlighted brilliantly in a book appropriately titled “We look like the Enemy”, by Rachel Shabi, a Jew of Iraqi origin where she points out to some mind boggling cases of clean discrimination. Israel has serious issues in its society; its brutality against the Palestinians is not its only problem.
